Tuesday, January 03, 2017

A LOOK AHEAD: JANUARY 2017

Steve Cole writes:

Karl von Clauswitz, the Prussian general who wrote the classic book On War, said that the weather can only be guessed at. How well did I guess on 1 Jan 2016 what would happen during that year? Well, a Major League baseball player would be proud of a 0.518 batting average, but I really wanted to do better. Let's look at my predictions as I further predict what will happen in 2017.

I predicted that we would get Captain's Log #51 out (we did) and would have Captain's Log #52 "during the winter" which should happen in January (2 for 2). I'll go ahead and predict Captain's Log #53 for next summer and Captain's Log #54 for winter a year from now.

I predicted that Communique and Hailing Frequencies would come out on time every time (it did, 2 for 2, total 4 for 4) and that we'd have a steady flow of new PDFs uploaded to the stores (we did at least two a month, more often three and sometimes four, so I'm scoring that one as done, 5 for 5). We should easily do that all again.

For Starline my predictions went awry. There was only one new ship (the 2450 D7K, basically a 2500 D7 rescaled for 3788) with two new big freighters at the casting house. (The mold company's predictions for master mold delivery didn't hold up, but overall this area counts as 2 for 5, bring us to 7 out of 10.) Two new 2500s are nearly ready to be turned into solid objects, so I predict four ships (Klingon HF5, Romulan SaberHawk, Jumbo Freighter, Heavy Freighter) for early in 2017. The gunboats didn't happen but if the CGI sculptor delivers them in 2017 we will get them released. We have plans for the 2500 Klingon B10 that may surprise a few people.

I did correctly predict that A Call to Arms: Star Fleet-1.2 would be finalized, and both the final basic version and the final Deluxe version were released. Book 2.1 wasn't completed by the outside designer due to continued playtesting to get the release right the first time (1 out of 2), but when he gets it to us we'll release it (prediction: 2017 for the basic version PDF, but I really think we'll be entirely done with Book 2).

The outside designer for Starmada decided that he needed to do something else before finishing Rumors of Wars (which did not see release in 2016, 0 for 1, total so far 8 out of 13) and when he gets a book to us we will print it (I will predict 2017).

Jean Sexton did get our paperback anthology For the Glory of the Empire onto Kindle but further books have yet to appear. (Score 1 for 3, total so far 9 out of 15. I'll predict at least one of those for 2017.) Jean's marketing and proofreading duties distracted her from design duties. Traveller did not happen; we should have had at least two books and the PD20M Supplemental File (score 0 for 3, total 9 out of 18). I predict one Traveller book (but I really think two) and the PD20M Supplemental File for 2017.

Steven P. Petrick predicted release of the Romulan Master Starship Book and Star Fleet Battles Module X2; he actually released the Romulan Master Starship Book and would have released the Lyrans if he could have gotten the art. Score that one as one for two (10 out of 20 overall). For 2017, I will predict he releases three books, two of which will be the Lyran and LDR Master Starship Books. The third probably will be X2 but we'll see how that goes; he might do the Gorn and Kzinti Master Starship Books instead.

For my (Stephen V. Cole) own part, I was scheduled to lay out several other people's books (already in the scorecard), and to release F&E Minor Empires and the Revised F&E Fighter Operations, as well as the new counters for bases and Advanced Operations, all of which happened (but the revised F&E Planetary Operations did not). The Federation Admiral Campaign Manual is still in design (the unpredicted need to scrap and replace the original author's combat system derailed the product) and work on Federation Commander Fighters Attack frankly never started. Overall, I will score myself four out of seven (total 14 out of 27). For 2017, I can safely predict I will finish Federation Admiral and Fighters Attack, and vaguely predict two other projects I will tell you about another time.

About Me

Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. is a game-publishing company that creates and publishes games based on the Original Series of Star Trek. We have a contract with Paramount Pictures to do so. Posts and blogs that are not directly related to gaming are the opinions of the individuals who write them, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.